How many hairs do you lose per day?

[Wusel]

I'm worried and a bit sad and I hope you can help.
Yesterday in the late evening I counted all the hairs I had on my brush from the day (I clean my brush from hairs every evening) and all hairs I've found on the floor (I love cleaning, so I vacuum almost every day) and it was 90. Roughly.
As my hair is no more short now it looked like a big ball of hairs and made me almost cry.
Do you think 90 is normal per day?
How many hairs do you loose per day?
Are you worried about every dozen hairs you loose or did you get used to the increased size of your lost-hair-ball as your hair became longer?
I'm worried.
When I was in puberty the hormonal hair loss (it was more than 500 hairs or so per day and I had to cut it and my dermatologist gave me cortisone for my scalp) traumatized me, I think. Since then I regularly count my lost hairs.
Thank you for help and information.

[Sarahlabyrinth]

I only counted my shed hairs on one single day, out of curiosity and came up with 47. However I know that when I went through my stress shedding I was getting a very large handful of hair every single day for about six weeks.
I'm sure shedding does have natural variations in amount though. Apparently it is normal to shed anything from 50 to 150 hairs a day as part of the normal shedding process. So unless your hair is gradually feeling or looking thinner as time passes, I wouldn't feel any need to worry about 90 hairs.

[MINAKO]

I voted 30-50. It might be under 20 on some days, but wash day makes up for that. I definitely loose two or three times the amount then, compared to normal days.

[Mimha]

Hello Wusel.

Your question is also of big interest to me. I have always wondered what was normal and what not, because my shedding can vary from hardly 10 to 20 hairs a day in my "low period" to more than 100 in my "high" period. When I shed a lot, the disaster takes place even more when I wash : then I shed 4 times more !! (between 300 to 400 hairs) i.e. every 4-5 days !!

When I started to count my shed hair (around September last year) every evening, I was totally freaked out. But I did not give up. I didn't want to trust the trichologists statistics : I wanted to analyse my own figures. I was afraid of having an issue with scalp fungus because I suffer from intestinal candidiasis. That's why, in the same time, I started to do herbal rinses of my composition too.

The results of my hair-loss curve all over the period are amazing and reassured me somehow : I understood that I had gone through a heavy seasonal shedding, that almost stopped within a week, and my hair-loss dropped from more than a hundred hairs a day to less than 20. What a relief !!!!... Lol. Now I want to complete a full year of data collection, in order to see if I have the same loss another time (normally there should be a 2nd hair-loss seasons ).

My curve is already showing very interesting variations between washes, showing for example that washes are clearly stress periods for the scalp, even if I super gently wash with soft organic biodegradable stuff, no hot water, hair comb super gently with horn comb and bbb, use no heat at all and no chemicals whatsoever (never CO in my life : never seen the point in avoiding chemical shampoos to put another chemical stuff instead, especially a leave-in).

Well, here I stand now^^. I think I will share my results with LHC, and maybe my excel sheet too, so the interested people will be able to use it to make their own annual curve. My figures also give me the personal daily hair-loss average over the year. But it will take one year to get the final score, lol. For the moment, as I am going ahead in the "low season", my annual average since September is around 70 hairs a day and decreasing every day. It will go up again when I enter a new hair-loss season. That's why I haven't completed the poll figures : I don't know where my annual average stands between 20 to 100 hairs a day.

I plan to make further investigation too (I am a very curious person^^) ! I would like to estimate my hair density (count hairs on 1 square cm on diverse areas of the scalp), and then, my scalp surface (mould my head and measure^^), measure my growth rate (that's easy), and then I will be able to estimate my terminal length, lol. AND THEN, see if I am patient enough to grow to it to validate my calculations, ha ha ha !!

Don't worry too much and try to figure out how your own body reacts (and when). It's very interesting.
...You can also MP me if you want to use my excel sheet already


Mim'

[Mimha]

... Oh, I forgot to add some important remarks in my previous post !

As you can see from what I have explained, a simple figure doesn't mean much. It depends on too many factors to be relevant for one person in particular :
- the hairs shed in one single day can vary extremely from one period of the year to another, for the same person
- the hair density of each person can be extremely different (you don't shed the same amount if you have 80'000 hairs than if you have 200'000)
- the life expectancy of every people's hair can be very different (2 to 10 or more years)
- the health, age, food, and stress level of the person have a tremendous influence too. (Not a lot of people can reach their best potential).

So 40 hairs a day (average pondered on one year) can be quite a lot for someone, whereas 80 can be just normal for another.

[Wusel]

... Oh, I forgot to add some important remarks in my previous post !

As you can see from what I have explained, a simple figure doesn't mean much. It depends on too many factors to be relevant for one person in particular :
- the hairs shed in one single day can vary extremely from one period of the year to another, for the same person
- the hair density of each person can be extremely different (you don't shed the same amount if you have 80'000 hairs than if you have 200'000)
- the life expectancy of every people's hair can be very different (2 to 10 or more years)
- the health, age, food, and stress level of the person have a tremendous influence too. (Not a lot of people can reach their best potential).

So 40 hairs a day (average pondered on one year) can be quite a lot for someone, whereas 80 can be just normal for another.

Thank you very much, Mimha for so many interesting informations. I really appreciate this.

[lapushka]

I never count. I just see the amount that comes out, and judge by that. ATM I'm not losing too much. I can see that at how much comes out during the weekly detangling pre- and post-wash.

[Kiiruna]

Haven't counted, but A LOT. Well, not that much on daily basis, but when I wash my hair (about twice a week)... gheez! I feel like I'm going bald or something. Especially when applying conditioner I feel like I have hands full of hair, and more is coming.

So yeah, I shed a lot. Maybe it's seasonal, maybe it's stress - I don't know. It doesn't show, however, as my hair is as thick and shiny as ever.

Try to take it easy. If your hair doesn't look significantly thinner, don't worry about it. Humans have about 100 000 single hair strands, and a few lost ones is like taking a cup of water from the sea. Everything from 20 to 150 is normal.

[Symbiotek]

I don't really count them, I don't care that much. I only notice shedding on washdays and when I find hair on my clothing. I shed a lot, but then again I have lots of hair to begin with, so I'm not worried.
I think 90 is quite normal and nothing to worry about, unless you have reeeeally thin hair (not the thickness of individual strands, but the amount of hair on your head). And as your hair gets longer and longer, it suddenly looks like you're shedding more because a few long strands tangled together look like much "more" than the same amount of shorter ones.

If you want, you could try putting your hair in a ponytail and measuring the circumference on a regular basis for a few weeks or months to see if it's getting smaller?

[loonylovegood47]

Wow I guess I didnt realize how many hairs we actually had on our heads! Or that there was such a wide range of "normal" as far as shedding goes. I dont shed too many hairs right now, maybe a dozen or so hairs a day that i notice or see in my brush, but I remember back when I had waist length hair in high school I would shed much more. The hairballs always looked more intimidating as well since there was a greater volume of hair than if my hairs had been short.